Perhaps you are one of those who are interested in paying your bills online, but have not yet taken the step to switch from paper checks, stamps, and the postman. Electronic bill pay has been around now for over 30 years in some form or fashion, and today tens of millions of consumers pay their bills everyday using an electronic bill pay service, whether through their bank, via direct debit from a checking account, or online at the biller’s own website.

It’s safe, it’s convenient, and, believe it or not, it’s more dependable than mailing a check to your biller. Your history of past payments is stored by your bill payment provider and can be easily accessed to provide information to help you analyze and manage your annual bill pay budget, or to offer you proof of past payments in the event of a dispute of some sort.

Most major banks, and even the smaller banks, offer electronic bill pay for free if you have a checking account with the bank. For many, paying their bills electronically at their banking website is the best option of all, because bank bill pay services offer you the ability to pay all of your bills in a single place, whether you are making a payment to big companies like AT&T or Comcast, or needing to make a payment to your neighbor around the corner. At your banks bill payment center, you can pay both from a single website, and you have the security that your bank offers to provide service and offer you a safe and satisfying bill payment experience.

Electronic bill payment services offer you more control over when your bills get paid, as you get to set the specific date that you wish for your payment to arrive. This, of course, lets you better manage the balance in your checking account and can help you avoid accidental checking account overdraft issues.

Once you are comfortable with electronic bill pay, you can enable more advanced features like receiving electronic bills to your email account, and setting up bill payments to happen automatically without you even needing to login to the bill pay service and take action. But all of this is totally under your control, and you are free at all times to choose to use these more advanced features…or not.

Of course, like any online financial service, it’s critically important that you protect your login credentials from being stolen.

So, take the plunge, and give it a try. Once you do, you will likely never go back to writing checks to make bill payments ever again!